Archive for October, 2009

It has been a sad time over winter. I wasn’t sure if I would get to garden in the bigger spot next to my townhouse again. Some new owners bought a place in our body corporate (the body corporate is the group of the six of us owners who own a townhouse each) and the new owners were keen to assert their part in the ownership over the bit of land next to my house. There was talk that the garden my daughter and I had lovingly worked in and shared produce with the other owners from in the last nine years should be converted to lawn, so that everyone could use it.

That’s how it was when we bought our townhouse, it was lawn, which everyone could use. No one came and sat in it, or helped maintain the hedge, or helped cut it down, or paid for the fence, or mowed the lawn. It was all left to me. It was too much hassle for anyone else to do anything, and they weren’t interested in sitting or standing or doing anything in it. So my daughter and I painstakingly converted it to garden, a patch at a time. A season at a time. A mosaic paving stone at a time. What fun.

When talk of the garden being converted to lawn was first floated at the AGM, I was so shocked, hurt and outraged, when I got home that night I cried. Various options were suggested. I put forward the idea that we could all have a vege patch each, or have a garden committee of keen gardeners to work in it. This was considered but then decided that it would take too much commitment and no one was really interested. It took till winter of email discussions before the lawn idea went down the river too, because it would cost too much to do and too much to maintain. My heart by then had gone out of the garden, I was okay with whatever everyone decided, lawn, carpark, whatever. Although I was broken hearted.

So in the end, the cheapest option for the body corporate is for me to continue to care for it for free. Although, the body corporate has now agreed to paint the wall and fence which is much needed. So last weekend, I began again in ernest, patch by patch. As I weed, I plant and the compost heap gets bigger. Within a month, the whole lot should be weeded and planted. The compost from last year is the most beautiful, wormy compost you could imagine. Birds watch me, waiting for me to leave so they can be the earliest ones to get the worm, although I covered last year’s compost with old carpet to stop them.

By the way, if you like my picture above, you can get the template and put your own pictures and words in from my Art Mama blog here. Great for recipe books, gardening records, brag book photos, visual journals etc etc.